{"id":7977,"date":"2018-02-02T19:54:03","date_gmt":"2018-02-02T19:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=7977"},"modified":"2018-02-02T19:54:03","modified_gmt":"2018-02-02T19:54:03","slug":"texas-supreme-court-to-settle-dispute-over-plastic-bag-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=7977","title":{"rendered":"Texas Supreme Court to Settle Dispute Over Plastic Bag Ban"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>

The Texas Supreme Court will decide later this year whether Texas cities can legally ban grocery stores and other retailers from offering single-use plastic bags. Photo: Sullivan\/GettyImages<\/p><\/div>\n

by Mark Richardson<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

AUSTIN, Texas \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0A decades-old dispute between Texas cities and state officials over plastic grocery bags has finally made its way to the state Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

At least 10 Texas cities, including Austin, Brownsville and Lardeo, have passed ordinances outlawing single-use plastic bags in grocery and retail stores. Merchants and manufacturers say cities can\u2019t do that, citing the 1993 Texas Solid Waste Disposal Act. But the cities argue it\u2019s a local issue.<\/p>\n

Robin Schneider, executive director of Texas Campaign for the Environment, said there\u2019s a lot riding on the court\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe issue is whether this \u201993 law that says local governments can\u2019t regulate containers or packaging for solid waste management purposes, whether that encompasses these laws or not,\u201d Schneider said.<\/p>\n

Environmental groups have long sought to ban thin, plastic bags as a major source of pollution, a danger to fish and animals, and a hazard in the devices that sort recycling materials. Manufacturers say the bags generate almost $70 billion in annual revenue and employ 75,000 Texans. They contend that a bag ban is an illegal restraint of trade.<\/p>\n

The Texas high court could rule in July.<\/p>\n

Schneider said the case,\u00a0pitting the city of Laredo against the Laredo Merchants Association<\/a>, brought together an unusual coalition supporting the city ordinances.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first time, many anglers and recycling and composting businesses, and other kinds of folks came together in a public way, to tell the Supreme Court that these bag ordinances should stand,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Since most of the court justices live in Austin, she noted they are likely familiar with the benefits of removing bags from the environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure many of these justices, if they don\u2019t live here full-time, they spend a good amount of time here. They\u2019ve seen a bag ordinance in action,\u201d Schneider said. \u201cThey, I\u2019m sure, can tell that there\u2019s a lot less single-use bags in the environment than there used to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its past two sessions, the Texas Legislature has considered bills that would have blocked cities from banning plastic bag use, but the measures didn\u2019t pass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Mark Richardson AUSTIN, Texas \u2013\u00a0A decades-old dispute between Texas cities and state officials over plastic grocery bags has finally made its way to the state Supreme Court. At least 10 Texas cities, including Austin, Brownsville and Lardeo, have passed ordinances outlawing single-use plastic bags in grocery and retail stores. Merchants and manufacturers say cities […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7977"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7979,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7977\/revisions\/7979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}